Despite the chip crisis and new corona restrictions in China, the Volkswagen Group made a jump in profits in the first half of the year. CEO Herbert Diess, who is retiring in September, says goodbye with strong figures overall.
At 10.6 billion euros, earnings after taxes were a good quarter above the previous year's level, as the Wolfsburg company announced on Thursday. The second quarter, in which further lockdowns slowed down the Chinese market, pushed earnings down by 22 percent. However, sales of electric vehicles picked up.
CFO Arno Antlitz said Europe's largest car group had "demonstrated considerable financial resilience" despite "unprecedented global challenges". For the second half of the year he expects an easing. A noticeable recovery has already started in Asia.
"However, the specific effects of the war in Ukraine or the Covid 19 pandemic cannot yet be conclusively assessed," VW said. Above all, profitable luxury cars carried the group through the ailing car economy.
Audi's operating result improved from 3.3 billion to 5 billion euros, and Porsche's from 2.7 billion to 3.3 billion euros. For the core brand VW passenger cars, 1.9 billion euros remained after 1.2 billion euros a year ago. Turnover and sales decreased noticeably here. At the same time, a quarter more electric cars were delivered.
Part of the profits are invested
The profits should also flow into its own software and services. Other electric models will follow, and after the start of construction of the battery cell factory in Salzgitter, Volkswagen is pressing ahead with planning for the next cell factories. The buyback of Europcar is to be used to expand the network of mobility services - from shuttle services and car sharing to subscription and rental offers.
In the development of self-programmed IT systems, there have recently been severe problems. Internal friction and expensive coordination problems delayed planned model launches and are said to have led to Diess being replaced. In the second quarter, the responsible group division Cariad improved updates for the existing vehicle fleet, it said. Management is much better aligned after tensions, Antlitz said. But the loss almost doubled from 502 million to 978 million euros. One reason for this lies in the investments for the further expansion of Cariad and new staff.
Allocation of tasks after personnel change still unclear
"We can continue the transformation of the group from a position of strength," said the CFO on the achievements of Diess, who will be replaced by Porsche boss Oliver Blume at the beginning of September. Antlitz is to support Blume in day-to-day business, because he will continue to manage the Stuttgart subsidiary at the same time. The exact division of tasks must first be clarified. "We haven't worked out the specifics yet," said Antlitz.
Details will probably be available in a few weeks. Some industry experts had doubts as to whether Blume's dual role was acceptable - especially since he and Porsche's CFO Lutz Meschke had to take care of the brand's IPO, which is planned for the end of the year.
Some of the Porsche AG shares should soon be freely traded on the financial market. This is how Volkswagen wants to increase its value. "It still makes perfect sense," said Antlitz when asked whether the time frame was right given the global economic turbulence. "Robust procedures" will also be set up to avoid conflicts of interest in the management of Porsche and the group.
There is progress in productivity. For a long time, the core brand VW was considered low-yield compared to other manufacturers. Her new boss, Thomas Schäfer, set further cost reductions as a goal: "In the medium term, we want to achieve an increase in efficiency of 20 percent for the entire volume brand group." In addition to the cars with the VW emblem, Schäfer coordinates the cooperation with Skoda, Seat/Cupra and the light VW commercial vehicles on the Group Board.
Will rising prices stop the upswing?
In the second half of the year, VW Passenger Cars is preparing for a significantly higher burden from raw material and energy costs. How much this is reflected in vehicle prices is unclear. Antlitz said about the faltering deliveries: "We will continue to drive up until the end of the year to ensure that our customers get their cars."
The next negotiations on the VW in-house tariff are also scheduled for autumn. Antlitz indirectly dampened expectations of high wage increases. "The employees are already benefiting from our good operating results. This should be taken into account," he said with a view to the bonus payments. A larger part of the inflation is also permanent, but temporary.
From January to June, group sales climbed by 2 percent to 132.3 billion euros. The inclusion of the US truck manufacturer Navistar for the first time played a role here. Across all brands and regions, deliveries fell by more than 22 percent to around 3.88 million vehicles. Production did not decline to the same extent - some of the cars are still backing up in the factories.
The operating result adjusted for special costs for "Dieselgate" fell in the second quarter by 28 percent to 4.74 billion euros. Valuation effects for commodity hedging weighed heavily. Companies enter into such transactions in order to cushion price fluctuations or slumps in volume. The number of employees fell slightly to 668,000.
